The Rumour of Foxdell
by Foxcraft
Summary: Gaara is a boy with autism. His case isn't as severe as you would think, though becomes noticeable every now and then. Kiba is his dog-loving best friend. The two came together to uncover a secret. And now that secret is causing trouble in their town, Foxdell.


**Heyo! Foxcraft here! This is my first Naruto story, and to be honest, I'm not all that sure if I'll update that often. I wrote this when I was in the mood for something dark and thought I should post it here. So, enjoy! And expect a maybe sort of update. :p**

**And DISCLAIMAH! I DON'T OWN ENNEHTHANG!**

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Dreary.

A dreary, dreary day in Foxdell. If you could even call it "day". The sun was barely shining through the heavy, grey clouds that spanned across the sky. The day was dark. And the cold and damp air of the town from the constant rain did nothing to help lighten the mood.

A dreary-looking boy sat on an old wooden chair in front of the large living room window. His finger traced a raindrop as it slid down the glass and stopped halfway. He heard a screeching kind of noise and looked down at the street in front of his house, a yellow school bus. The bus came to a slow stop and a boy in a grey jacket stepped out, running for the house.

Standing up, Gaara pushed the chair back a little, making it scrape against the wooden floorboards. He turned away from the window, no longer seeing, but hearing the rain pelt down onto the glass. He stood with his back to the window, staring at the hallway outside the livingroom.

"It's raining, it's pouring... It's raining, it's pouring..." Gaara repeated to himself quietly, walking out of the room and downstairs to answer the door.

Gaara continued murmuring to himself as he stood in front of the door, listening to the boy knock on the other side. Repeating to himself one more time, he grabbed the door knob and pulled it opened, facing the soaked boy.

"Hey, man! You weren't at school today! I thought I'd stop by and say 'hey'." The boy said.

Gaara stared at the person, observing his dripping brown hair, the rain drops sliding over the red tattoos on his cheeks. He nodded, moving for the brunette to enter the ancient home.

He entered, shaking the rain water off like a dog before taking off his jacket and dropping it to the floor.

"Kiba.." He glanced up, hearing the redhead talk. "You didn't have to come." Gaara said. The brunette just smiled and shook his head. "I had to. You know we need to talk about this."

Gaara opened his mouth as he was about to speak but quickly closed it again as the brunette continued to speak.

"Akamaru's at the Vet, something, something a little worse than usual is happening."

Gaara nodded, leading the boy back upstairs to the living room.

The two boys walked in silence, their footsteps mixing quietly with the creaking of the floorboards. They entered the living room, an old, wooden looking place.

The walls were painted an ivory white with a few cracks here and there. A large window sat across from the entryway, the white-painted wood that ran between the square and rectangle glass had begun to crack and chip away. In front of the window was an old, oak wood chair with a nail sticking out where the back right leg met the seat. A large, dark red rug with dirt-dulled golden designs covered the middle of the room, saving your feet from splinters. A cedar wood couch with a large dark green cushion sat upon the rug, facing a marble fireplace on the wall perpendicular to the wall with the entrance. Another smaller window sat to the left of the fireplace, it's condition no better than the larger one.

The redhead and brunette walked behind the couch, going around it and sitting down. They turned their bodies to face each other, giving the other their undevided attention.

"Ah, I guess I should start with the woods.." Kiba said, fidgeting with his hands.

"That may be a good place to start." Gaara said blankly, making the brunette grin.

Then quickly turn solemn, getting serious.

"I let Akamaru outside yesterday afternoon when I went home for lunch, after I came back when school ended, he was laying on the edge of the woods behind our house. He was bloody, with bite and claw marks. Gaara, the woods aren't safe again." Kiba said the last sentence eerily, giving what he said some impact.

The redhead turned his head, looking out the smaller window. He blinked and then sighed.

"We can't do anything about it. We're just unlucky enough to know a secret about this town that the other citizens don't. The police would laugh at us, accomplishing nothing. And the two of us can't put up that good of a fight against something like that." He said, glancing back at his only friend.

"So we couldn't take care of the problem ourselves.." The brunette sighed, then widened his eyes as an idea came to him. "What if we got some silver? There's bound to be some where we found those books and stuff!" He exclaimed.

Gaara gave him a hard look, "Do you really?"

"I do, really." Kiba replied, imitating the hard look, determination in his eyes. "They almost killed my Akamaru. The last time I saw an animal wounded like him, it was two years ago and I threw up, remember? Gaara, it was that bad." The brunette emphasized.

The redhead stared at the brunette, green eyes meeting brown. He nodded, standing up. "Do you want to look now?" He asked. Kiba nodded eagerly, standing up as well. The two boys hurried out of the living room, careful with their footing to avoid splinters. They hurried down the hall to the stairs that lead to the front door, Gaara pulled his boots and rain jacket from the closet, beginning to put them on. Kiba just picked up and put on his jacket, still wearing his boots. He glanced down at Gaara as the redhead made sure his feet felt just the right way in his rubber boots.

Once the boy straightened, they rushed outside towards the back of the house, the door slamming behind them. Water splashed up onto their pant legs from the watered down grass that they stomped across. Reaching their destination, they stopped, staring down at the cellar.

Two years and one month ago, a younger Gaara had gotten curious about the chained up door on the ground in his backyard. Wondering what was behind it, he came back with a pair of bolt cutters that he had dredged up from the basement. He spent the next thirty-five minutes cutting the chains and removing them. What he had found had interested him, and he found himself, a not at all social boy, wanting to share it with as many people as possible. He found the courage to go to school the next day and told his entire class, trying to get at least one person to believe him. His peers had laughed at him, calling him names and questioning his sanity as usual, except for one boy. Kiba Inuzuka had approached him among the snickering and chatter. Kiba quickly made it clear to Gaara that he didn't believe him, but that the idea of werewolves interested him, so he decided to get off of the bus with Gaara and not at his own stop. The two boys ran around to the back of the redhead's home, pulling up the cellar door and climbling down. Needless to say, Kiba quickly believed Gaara and the two became friends. The two thought about the reactions the town would have if they learned if creatures stalked the woods around them. Gaara and Kiba quickly agreed on only ever speaking about this with each other.

Now the two boys once again looked down on the door, glancing back at each oher before looking back down to the cellar. Kiba huffed and grasped the handle, heaving it up, struggling against the rusting hinges. The plank fell back against the wooden siding of the house, releasing a musty smell that stuck in their nostrils. The boys glanced back at each other once more before descending the narrow staircase, one after the other.

Kiba reached a wooden desk and felt around for the matches he remembered being there. Soon, his hand fell upon a small green box from the Victorian Era, faded words in french scrawled across the top with "London" being the only one still visible. The brunette quickly opened the box and took out a match, striking it a few times on the box before it lit. Using the newly created light, Kiba quickly located the old, yellowed candles and lit one, then the one standing next to it.

Gaara and Kiba glanced around the now dimly lit cellar. Other than the candles and matchbox, there were a few peices of inked parchment and three old, yellow-paged books on the desk. Beside the desk were two trunks sitting side by side, still locked like the day the two boys had first came down to the cellar.

Gaara looked at Kiba. "We've read those books, but-"

"We should look in the chests." Kiba finished his sentence. Gaara nodded. "Look around in the dirt, maybe there's a key lying somewhere."

The redhead said, grabbing a candle and getting down on his knees. The redhead carefully scanned the earth beneath them while Kiba turned back to the desk, moving the old, crumbling parchments around. Gaara's head snapped up to the desk, and Kiba fixated on where he just moved his hand. Something had dragged against the wood, under a piece of parchment. Gaara stood up and placed the candle on the desk as Kiba picked up the pieces of parchment. A dirty, dull brass skeleton key lay on the wood, not shining at all in the candle light. The boys grinned at each other in victory.

Gaara grabbed the old key and turned towards the trunks. Kiba dropped the parchments back down on the desk and quickly stepped beside the redhead.

"C'mooon, open one!" The brunette urged. Gaara glared at him before turning his gaze back down. Crouching, the redhead stuck the key in the hole and tried to turn it.

"Something's stuck, or it's comepletely rusted.." He grunted, still attempting to twist the key.

Kiba snorted, "Here, let me try." He said, leaning down and grabbing the key. The brunette twisted, putting some muscle into it, he applied more force. Kiba grunted, and finally the key turned with a dirty scraping sound. The boys grinned at each other in victory again.

Gaara placed his hands on the corners of the lid before pushing forward and upward. The top stuck a bit before it gave, unleashing a horrid odor. "Ugh!" Kiba grunted, covering his nose. Gaara turned his head away, breathing in some cleaner air before grabbing a candle off the desk and lowering it into the chest.

Dark red, almost brown, was plastered on the sides and floor of the trunk. And in the middle of it lay a..paw?

It looked like a human hand but with talons instead of fingernails, and it was covered in a silvery grey hair, leaving whatever was left of the skin unvisible.

Their eyes widened, both of them coming to the same conclusion. "Is that a.."

"I think so."

"Dude, that's rank!" Kiba exclaimed.

"Quick, open the other chest. Maybe it's more of..this. Or maybe it has whatever took this off inside of it." Gaara urged. Kiba looked a tad unsure, but yanked the key out of the lock. He pushed it into the other chest, struggling but finally twisting the key, unlocking the trunk. The brunette placed his hands on the sides of the top, digging his nails in before pulling up. The chest opened, revealing all kinds of metal tools that glinted in the candle light.

Gaara's eyes widened, Kiba's as well. "Holy shit.." The brunette hissed.

The contents of the trunk were a little more extreme than what the boys had gone searching for. Blades and devices with disturbing appearances gleamed orange from the two tiny flames.

"These look like..some kind of medieval torture devices.." Gaara said, picking one up. He examined it closely, bringing it closer to his face.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you.. We have no idea where those have been." Kiba said rigidly, watching his friend like the blade might grow hands and grab the redhead's face. Gaara ignored him and continued inspecting the blade. Finally, he looked Kiba in the eye. "Does this look like silver to you?" The redhead asked.

Kiba paused in thought, before nodding with confidence. "Yeah, it does."

The boys sat there and grinned at each other in victory one more time.

"Good."


End file.
